Monday, July 20, 2009

Smelling Salts

Since I know the saga of my packing is of extreme interest to everyone out there, I will continue it today by sharing with you the fact that the other night, I packed until I passed out.

I actually fainted.

First I should mention that I am prone to fainting, as is my mother. I mean, it doesn’t happen all the time, but every so often, say once every three years or so, I’ll faint. There is always a cause – I say this in case you’re concerned I am the victim of a rare, undiagnosed disease, which is precisely what I would assume.

The first time David was privy to one of my fainting spells was right after we’d moved in together in LA and I slammed the car door onto my finger. I said to David, “I am going to faint.” And then I did, right to the floor – a slow fall, thank goodness, because he didn’t make the slightest effort to catch me whatsoever.

“Why didn’t you CATCH me for God’s sake,” I shrieked afterwards, “I told you I was going to faint.”

“But you’re such a drama queen I didn’t think you would actually DO it,” was his reply.

I absolutely loathe being called a drama queen, as every drama queen does. So I told him, “Look, in the future, if

I ever say that I am going to pass out, I really truly mean it and I’d appreciate it if you would save me from slamming my bones to the hard and unforgiving earth,”

And to think he considers me histrionic. . .

Another fainting spell of note occurred when I was about 10 weeks pregnant with Primo, right in the middle of the very worst, most ravaging, awful phase of my morning sickness. I was throwing up 2, 3 times a day, and couldn’t keep anything down at all, so I actually lost weight in my first trimester. I was skinnier pregnant than not pregnant. So I got on the subway to go to my temp job and I’d already thrown up once or twice that morning and by the time I got to Wall Street I wasn’t feeling too perky. By Park Place I was in bad shape. And when the train pulled into Chambers Street I remember thinking, “Get off the train Nicole, it’s your stop,” but I couldn’t move my legs.

Then I fainted. David wasn’t there, which was probably for the best because had he neglected to catch me then, when I bore the seed of his son, I think I would have performed a criminal act on him. Some other nice people caught me though, and offered me a seat and then I got off the subway and ate a donut from a cart on the street and then I threw up. Ah, pregnancy.

So this weekend, on Friday night, I was packing like it was closing time, which it was, considering the movers were coming at 8 AM the next morning. I hadn’t eaten much and drank almost nothing because I was in the packing ZONE where all that mattered was accumulating filled boxes labeled with my deranged handwriting. It occurred to me that I wasn’t feeling altogether too strong and as I walked into the kitchen to get a glass of water, I had that old familiar light-headed feeling. I happened to be just passing the sofa where David sat, resting. He’d been taking furniture apart all day so I can’t call him a slacker but he was, at that particular moment, sitting on his ass. And that is when I fainted.

“What happened to you?” he asked me.

“I PASSED OUT!” I cried, as a huge surge of self pity rolled over me,“FROM FATIGUE!!!!!!!!!!!”

And then I cried a little bit in self pity and insisted on laying on the floor until David brought me a glass of orange juice, for my blood sugar.

“There’s none left,” he called from the kitchen.

“YOU FINISHED THE ORANGE JUICE!” I shouted, although I was too weak to get off the floor, “And here I am FAINTING????”

It was kind of divine, I have to admit, a spectacular demonstration of my martyrdom. And really, that’s what marriage is all about.

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About Me

Nicole is a parenting writer who contributes essays and articles for magazines like Parenting, Parents, American Baby and Babble. She lives in Brooklyn with three children, one husband and a morbidly obese goldfish.